


all the pretty girls in the world (but i'm in this space with you)

by zenithaurora



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awkward Flirting, F/F, Fluff, Pandemic - Freeform, Quarantine, Swearing, online school sucks and i will complain about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:01:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29213103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenithaurora/pseuds/zenithaurora
Summary: Suki breaks her wrist and meets her next-door neighbor.
Relationships: Katara/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: Winter ATLA Femslash Week 2021





	all the pretty girls in the world (but i'm in this space with you)

A loud pop sound breaks the silence of the apartment. Suki feels the ligaments of her wrist snap, and as she is falling to the ground, she thinks that she might has sprained her wrist. She lands gracelessly on her bottom, and lets out a small whine in pain.

The lamp that was balancing on the top of the pile of clothes that was lying on the chair falls to the ground, and the lightbulb shatters. So does the photo frame that was hanging over her desk. She cringes as she stares at the state of the place; the glass shards that are garnishing are a mockery to her person.

She holds her right wrist against her chest and probes it with the index finger of her left hand. She immediately pulls it back, groaning at the tenderness of the zone, that is already starting to pick up a reddish shade. She also notices that it’s slightly swollen.

 _Great_.

And to think the only thing she was trying to do was to exercise.

Ever since quarantine began and gyms were closed without imminent warning of when they were going to open again, Suki had been slowly, but surely, losing every little bit of her sanity.

She needs to feel the strain of her muscles, the heavy pants coming out of her lunges, the drops of sweat streaming down her face that tends to end in the cornices of her mouth. She knows that the improvised gym she had created in the shoe box she calls her apartment was precarious to say the least, but she didn’t expect an actual injury coming out of it.

In hindsight, she should have known better.

She hears someone knocking on the door.

“Who is it?” she asks, and curses under her breath when the pain becomes too sharp to tolerate it.

“I’m your next-door neighbor. I heard something crashing,” her muffled voice replies, “are you okay?”.

 _If you ignore my messed-up wrist, then sure_.

Suki sighs. She doesn’t have a driving license or a car, and frankly, she doesn’t want to go to a hospital for a sprained wrist in the middle of a pandemic. She also doesn’t know where her phone is at the moment— the stranger at the other side of the door might be her best option.

“Come in!” she yells, “it’s unlocked”.

The stranger enters the department.

_Holy fuck._

The stranger is probably one of the most beautiful women she has ever seen in her life. Her dark brown hair falls down in well-crafted curls over her slender shoulders, and her bronze skin practically shines in the decrepit state of her living space.

_Maybe I do have a type._

The stranger furrows her eyebrows in confusion. She is taking a step towards Suki, when the ground below her crunches. She looks down, and her eyes widens when she notices the amount of glass shards that are on the floor.

“What happened?” the stranger asks, concern present in the high-pitch tone of her voice.

Suki wants to answer, she really does, but she is too lost in the deep brown of the stranger’s skin and the wrinkle in the middle of her forehead to give a proper reply to her question.

“W-what’s your name?” she stammers.

She wants to slap herself on the face. _Really smooth. Make yourself look like an incompetent fool in front of the pretty girl._

The girl looks taken aback for a moment, and raises one eyebrow. “Uhm,”, she seems to hesitate for a moment but then gives a soft smile, “my name is Katara”.

“Katara” Suki repeats the name back to her, relishing on the sound of her name coming out of her lips. _Even her name is beautiful_.

She extends her non-injured arm. “My name is Suki”.

Katara holds her extended arm by the wrist and gives a gentle squeeze. “Suki,” Katara repeats the name back to her and, having taking notice of the condition of her right arm, she crouches down to the ground.

“May I?” she asks before proceeds to do anything else.

Suki nods.

Katara probes the injury, and hears an alarming grating sound, which makes Suki hiss and take a sharp inhale of breath through her nose. The wound already looks bad; the red has begun vanishing to give in place to a dark purple, and the mild swelling of before it’s now a noticeable bulge. Suki seems to cringe with even the slightest touch of her hands.

It’s definitely sprained, maybe even broken.

“Stay here and don’t move” Katara orders, and walks in direction to the kitchen.

She comes back quickly, holding an ice pack and a kitchen towel. She wraps the ice pack in the towel and places on top of the injured wrist.

“Keep it there for fifteen minutes or so,” Katara says, “I’ll come back”. She stands up and leaves.

Suki sight it’s fixated on the doorframe and her hearing it’s focused on the rambling going on in the apartment adjacent to hers.

After a good couple of minutes, Katara comes back to her apartment, a small medical kit attached to her hip. She crouches back down and sits on her knees, making sure there are no glass shards beneath them.

Katara lifts the swaddled ice pack, and smiles when she notices that the swelling has come down a little bit. She puts the ice pack and the kitchen towel aside on the floor and unfolds some sort of pink elastic bandage. She begins by placing it in the middle of the back of her right hand and around. She wraps the zone twice and continues by going down to the beginning of her wrist. She does it a couple times, and before it becomes bulky, she lowers the bandage to finally cover the injured zone, past the wrist joint and down to the middle of her inner forearm.

Suki raises her sight and finds herself irrevocably mesmerized when she takes a peek at her eyes. Her sapphire blue eyes, that are so sharp in concentration but gentle at the handling of the task at the same time; opposite, maybe even impossible.

“Everything okay?” Katara asks absentmindedly, too focused on wrapping the remaining of the bandage and making sure of not allowing the tape to touch her skin.

“Your eyes are gorgeous” Suki breathes.

Katara’s blush is visible even through her dark complexion, but she pretends that Suki doesn’t notice this.

“How could I have never met you before?” Suki asks. “We live next to each other”.

“Busy with school” it’s the entirety of Katara’s answer. She finishes putting on the tape. “All done. You should rest on the couch and put your wrist on an elevated pillow” she instructs as she helps Suki lay on the couch, with some pillows behind her back for support and one on top of her stomach for her injured wrist.

Katara goes back to the kitchen and put the ice pack back in the freezer. She grabs the broom that is against the wall and begins sweeping the glass shards.

“I can—” Suki prompts, but it’s cut off by Katara.

“Nope, you need to get some rest”, she admonishes, “doctor’s orders”.

Suki lips curls upwards, barely containing the grin that is threatening to show on her face. “A doctor, huh?” she teases.

Katara blushes again. She hopes that Suki doesn’t notice it beneath the hair that is covering the profile of her face. She picks up the dust pan, and with the aid of the broom, she cleans the floor.

“First year of medical school, actually” she vacillates, “not a real doctor yet”.

“You fixed my wrist” Suki shrugs, “you’re my doctor”.

This time, Katara doesn’t bother hiding the blush that creeps its way up to her cheeks. She pours some cold water in a cup and hand it to Suki.

“So,” Suki drawls, “how old are you?”.

“Twenty-one. Why?” Katara replies.

_So, she is around my age— interesting._

“You got accepted pretty young, you must be really smart” Suki recognizes.

Katara bites her lower lip in an attempt to stop the imminent smile from showing on her face. She distracts herself by checking on her injury.

“How did you break your wrist?” she questions with one eyebrow quirked up, “you haven’t told me yet”.

This time, it’s Suki’s turn for her face to be covered by a faint pink flush. “I was working out” she confesses. “I was supposed to go to the Tokyo Olympics before they were cancelled and I’m trying to stay in shape”.

Katara should have known that Suki was some sort of athlete, if only by the intriguing definition and curves of her muscular body. Nevertheless, she is still amazed by the fact that she just met an Olympic athlete.

“Really?” she beams, “what for?”.

Suki raises her chin and places her uninjured hand on her chest. “Allow me to introduce myself;” she announces in a mocking tone, “I am part of the Canada Judo’s team. Middleweight category, to be more specific” she gloats with a smug smile on her face.

Katara finds her mannerisms and pride in her sport endearing, and she can’t help but to chuckle.

“A pity I won’t be able to watch you fight on television” Katara pouts, although the barely-kept smile is too noticeable to make her act look authentic.

Suki catches on her game fast. “It’s okay;” she says, a devilish grin creeping in, “you can watch me get rowdy with other girls next year”.

Katara feels her lips dry, but the smile on her face is undeniable. Suki is playing with her, that it’s obvious Katara has never been one to back down.

“As much as I would love to see you fight some girls, maybe we should do something else sooner”, she teases and bats her eyelashes.

Suki is taken aback by her direct approach, but her surprise quickly disappears and instead, she is only left with some warm pleasure. “I thought med students were supposed to be busy”.

“I am,” Katara says, “I just stare at my computer screen for forty-five minutes, cry for ten because online schooling doesn’t work on my brain, and repeat” she deadpans.

Suki throws her head back, her guffaws echoing in the small room.

“I’m sorry, that sounds awful” she sympathizes. Then, an idea flashes through her mind and she smiles. “I’m sure I can do something to make you feel better though”.

Katara quirks an eyebrow.

“Let’s have dinner together”.

“You don’t have food in the fridge” Katara informs her, but she can’t stop her lips from turning upwards.

“But I have almost a dozen of menus” Suki insists, “your pick”.

Katara stands up but immediately stop on her tracks to turn her head around and look at Suki. It’s like the confidence she was basking in before evaporated in thin air. However, she needs to make sure she isn’t making everything in her head.

“So,” she drawls and plays with the ends of her hair, “is this a date?”.

Suki feels the betrayal of the blush on her face showing, feeling a bit too shy all of a sudden. She shrugs awkwardly with her left shoulder, keeping in mind her injured wrist. “If you want”.

Katara ponders on the answer for a moment, although, deep down, she already knows the answer. “It’s a date”.

**Author's Note:**

> Title based on 'Honey' by Kehlani.


End file.
